Eritrea – bordering on the Red Sea – is a land of extremes. The searing heat of its deserts and the harness of the mountains are softened by abundant valleys and a green, fertile plateau. Much the same can be said of its politics. Fierce and stubborn in their 30-year war of independence from Ethiopia that ended in May 1991, the Eritrean people briefly held the promise of a model state, with an open democracy and real hopes of prosperity.
Yet today Eritrea is among the most repressive states in Africa. Thousands of its youth, desperate to escape interminable conscription, flee the country, running the risk of drowning in the Mediterranean or being sold to people-traffickers in the Sinai.
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